By Colleen Gray | Staff writer
While some people are looking forward to hot cocoa, sweaters, and the leaves to change color, others are getting ready for the darker sides of fall. Spooky hayrides through the woods, carving menacing faces into pumpkins, scaring the kids who are trick-or-treating down your street, and, of course, getting your socks knocked off at a haunted house.
Haunted houses are one of the most popular attractions during the fall season and bring in an assortment of customers from scare fanatics to teenagers just looking for a thrill.
When asked why they like visiting haunted houses people responded with things like “It’s a fun thing to do with friends,” “The costumes and effects are too awesome to miss,” and “The scare gets my heart pumping…makes me feel alive”.
There are a variety of settings that haunted houses have to offer. The most common is the creepy old house that’s filled with ghosts and creaking stair- cases, but the bigger companies offer more unique scares. Jungle rooms with screeching zombie monkeys, insane asylums with homicidal patients, and dark labyrinths that seem to have no end.
A good scare provides more than just a startle or a gasp. Mind tricks and psychological terror is what it’s really about. When they make you forget that you’re even in line at a haunted house, actually quivering in your boots and clinging to your friend for dear life, that’s when you’ve really been scared. If you want to judge how scary a haunted house is, the best make you have night- mares every time you close your eyes.
So if you’re someone who would rather spend the night with ghouls than cuddled up with your ‘boo’thang then make sure to check out some of the local haunts below.
